"The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood

"The Handmaid's tale" is a dystopic novel set in Gilead. In the aftermath of a coup, the United States has gone under drastic changes. Women are now classed as second-class citizens or worse. Each caste of woman wears different colour clothing, and has different duties. Wives enjoy the most "freedoms" and authority, and dress in blue. Handmaids are the childbearers, and dress in red. Marthas do all the cooking and other similar tasks, and dress in green. This may make me sound like a monster, but a quite a few of the decisions made by the Gilean government make sense and appear reasonable to me. Of course, I wouldn't condone an establishment of this sort--but that's the worrying thing. The changes took place little by little, without the populace being aware. This is when you realise The Handmaid's Tale isn't just speculative fiction, it's scarily plausible. The first-person perspective is an obvious choice, but at times becomes frustratingly hard to follow. This mainly occurs during recollections and memories (probably due to Offred--the protagonist--'s distress at the time). Nevertheless I found myself marking the page during those passages and returning to them later. This book left me sad. Aside from the obvious human rights breaches and what happens to misbehaving women, I felt distraught at the hypocrisy of the so-called "Christian" regime. Love doesn't feature anywhere in the equation, not in childbirth, sex or marriage. With moral considerations also out of the window, the people of Gilead are reduced to nothing more than animals--as evidenced by the sole purpose of a huge group of women to procreate successfully or be disposed of. Score: Recommended Rationale: It's a very powerful book. Distressing without resorting to cheap tricks like gore etc...